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terrymaster69 writes "The New York Times reports that the National Academy of Sciences has just published their third book outlining guidelines for the teaching of evolution. 'But this volume is unusual, people who worked on it say, because it is intended specifically for the lay public and because it devotes much of its space to explaining the differences between science and religion, and asserting that acceptance of evolution does not require abandoning belief in God.'"

Public education *should* include the limitation of science. Too many lay people see scientists as modern priests, and take our models as gospel. It is important to realize that unlike fundamentalist interpretation of religious texts, scientific laws and theories are mutable (they change whenever conflicting observations are made) and limited in scope (they are only really trustworthy within the scope of the measurements they are based on).

Much of the creationist/ID nonsense is due to people not understanding how science should be hold to different standards than religious texts. "The theory of Evolution" is very much different today than what Darwin proposed. This would have been a weakness in a religion, but is a strength for a scientific theory.

Given that the core of religious belief (at least among the western monotheistic traditions) is "Magic Man Dunnit", it is hard to see how religion has come a long way from that view.

I mean, yeah, I get that some people read the western religious canon as allegory--it counts as an advance, I guess, that very few people believe Jonah was literally in a whale. But it is hard to see how assertions about, e.g., Jesus doing magic (water to wine, walking on water, coming back to life) is anything other than "Magic Man Dunnit".

My old high school science teacher was religious, and was heavily involved with his local church (as I was shocked to find out). He taught us the theory evolution without caveat, without overemphasis on the word "theory", and with only one mention of any controversy on the topic. Even then, he only mentioned that he had no trouble resolving science and faith, that faith is something you believe in despite all scientific evidence, that science is done by the scientific method, and that no matter what his fai

The problem with the "public should be taught the limitations of science" model is that the limitations of science should be seen as the limitations of human knowledge.

There are a number of what I consider to be mistakes in the current debate. The first is to identify scientific truth with the kind of absolutist claims that are made by religion. Scientific truth is a much more humble concept. The second mistake is when people who understand the two are different, nevertheless believe that the religious conception of truth is viable. It isn't. We just need to face up to the fact that we appear to be epistemically limited creatures.

Justification by evidence isn't going to work, because science will just eat it up. Justification by faith is an oxymoron. The only sorts of proofs left are metaphysical arguments, and even if they work, they never result in the kind of god that anyone other than a Deist would want to believe in.

I don't have a moral problem with people believing in God. But that doesn't mean that their beliefs should not be challenged in public, and that they should not be called on to defend them (and likewise for the opposition). That's pretty much what we do on other topics. Someone makes a claim and people ask for reasons why we should believe it. It beats fighting about it. There are many reasons we should debate religion, but the best one is probably because we want to know whether its claims are true or not. That's really the value that underpins most of science.

The recent prominence of people like Dawkins is evidence that the prejudice against the critical discussion of religion in public is on the wane. That's a good thing. We also have public places where this sort of thing is debated formally: they are called philosophy classes.

Mod parent up. Science has limitations, but the only way around it is more scientific research, not substitution with religion. In fact, if you view religious beliefs from a scientific view point, there is no evidence to back religious claims (including the God hypothesis) and there is no reason to believe in God more than in a celestial teapot revolving around the earth (Bertrand Russell) or in the Flying Spagetti Monster.

As HL Mencken says "We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart." I think it is a good thing that religious belief should be questioned in the classroom and what better forum than a science class.

Dawkins makes all these points and more in his book "The God Delusion".

Thank you, sir, for putting this discussion on the right track. The central issue is epistemology [stanford.edu] -- or, rather, ignorance of epistemology, particularly when this topic arises on certain geek news sites [slashdot.org]. However, I think we'll have to respectfully disagree on a few points. Perhaps you'd prefer a more technical treatment, but let's start simple for the benefit of the readers.

the limitations of science should be seen as the limitations of human knowledge.

No offense intended, but the prevalence of this fallacy makes it one of my pet peeves.

First, and most importantly, this position is inherently false because it is self-refuting. It is a serious and far-reaching claim, requiring justification. However, the claim itself falls outside the limitations of science. It cannot meet its own standard of justification. To state that "Only scientific claims are knowable" is equivalent to stating, "Only ten-word sentences are true."

At worst, the claim proves its own falsehood. At best, it suggests its own unknowability. So, in the best case, you should neither expect anyone to believe you, nor complain when they don't.:-)

This idea is a form of positivism. Positivism enjoyed remarkable popularity for an remarkably short span in the early 20th century. Many hailed positivism as the end of religion, just before it died a rapid death at its own hands... though not before the scientific community had adopted it as -- oops! -- unquestioned dogma. It is a myth, perpetuated from generation to generation by those who don't know better. (Hey, that sounds a lot like Dawkins! Fancy that.)

Second, this position is also incidentally false. One could hold that a rational person shouldn't accept any non-scientific claim, even if that claim somehow happens to be correct. But no one actually does this. There are plenty of propositions that most of us accept, though they lie outside the limitations of science. The clearest example is the claim that the universe exists. Is that silly? Let me rephrase: the claim that the universe, rather than the Matrix, exists. By definition, this question can never be addressed scientifically. But that doesn't prevent it from being true, and one is hardly considered irrational or unscientific for believing in a real universe.

Other examples abound, including logic, ethics, human rights, and (of course) the principles of science itself. You are free to claim that we can't know if science works, but then you can hardly make the recommendation that you are making.

We just need to face up to the fact that we appear to be epistemically limited creatures.

It is quite clear that we have epistemic limitations. But it is also quite clear that those limits aren't quite as narrow as you propose. Any epistemology that's too limited will probably be self-refuting.

Even if it's possible to doubt some of the things I've mentioned, like an objective physical world, (1) there is no obligation to do so, and (2) no one actually does so, including full-fledged skeptics (as Hume himself admits). In a many cases, perhaps most cases, doubting has no epistemic superiority over not doubting. This leads philosopher Dallas Willard to quip, "You can't just doubt your beliefs and believe your doubts. Sometimes you have to doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs."

But it is the prevailing intellectual fashion to doubt. This is really too bad, because unjustified doubt is no more intelligent than unjustified belief, a.k.a. gullibility. And it is no more accurate.

It seems to me that I could just as well suggest, "We just need to face up to the fact that it is sometimes rational to accept unprovable truths." Even if, say, the principles of science don't possess epistemic certainty, they are suffici

Thanks for your reply."First, and most importantly, this position is inherently false because it is self-refuting. It is a serious and far-reaching claim, requiring justification. However, the claim itself falls outside the limitations of science. It cannot meet its own standard of justification. To state that "Only scientific claims are knowable" is equivalent to stating, "Only ten-word sentences are true."

No it isn't. For a start, one is demonstrably false, the other is at least plausible.

As if hypothetical examples of non-repeatable events for which no evidence exists and a naive definition of "knowledge" aren't begging the question. Your experience isn't knowledge. Your experience isn't even necessarily real. Please quit invoking Godel, or I'm going to ask you to demonstrate how his theories are germane to this discussion.

> The problem with the "public should be taught the limitations of science" model is that the limitations of science should be seen as the limitations of human knowledge.

Ridiculous. We know plenty of things we cannot hold to scientific rigor. Not that there aren't people like you trying to exclude them from being called "knowledge" by various means.

You're thinking of "science" in the most limited sense, results obtained through the simple scientific method. We can "know" an awful lot more than that still using a scientific approach, just with differing levels of certainty. Here, this may help:

When theology looks to explain observable phenomena (be they fossils or historical events) then you'd be able to justify a claim that it was a science. Until then, it's at best an abstract philosophical discipline, the same as things like ethics, though with rather less practical applications.Are you trying to claim that palaeontology/isn't/ a scientific discipline? Or that the study of history is fundamentally different? Either of those claims would need significant support before you could really justify

"The theory of Evolution" is very much different today than what Darwin proposed.

That's where so many people get this wrong. Evolution is a fact; natural selection is but one theory to explain the fact of evolution. This is analogous to gravity. Gravity is a fact. Mechanics was Newton's theory of gravity; it has since been replaced by Einstein's General Relativity, but at no time did gravity stop being a fact.

If public education makes no mention of God, the students take it upon themselves to do so, typically in the context of "no, God did it." By proactively addressing the relationship between religion (God) and science without making an opinionated statement on the matter, science teachers can disarm a lot of anti-science arguments, thus preventing disruptions in the classroom.

My wife teaches science in public schools, by the way. She takes 15-20 minutes early in the school year to address why religion and science don't have to be at odds, and why students don't need to jump in with comments about God every chance they get. It makes a huge difference in how these kids behave, and even in how they accept the material presented.

People of all ages and backgrounds start believing in Jesus. That should be a subtle clue that they're rather different. Christianity having a basis in historical events would be another.

Yes. It is called mass delusion.

You believe it because so many others believe it. After all, how can all these people be wrong, eh?

Use examples from the past. Greek gods and Roman gods would be one. Egyptian gods another. Also Japanese emperor is a god figure as well. No one believes any of these anymore, yet not so long ago, A LOT of people believed it and you would be killed for saying different. A LOT of people can't be wrong. All current religions are just a natural continuation of the past religions. As people outgrew their deities, we needed to create more powerful ones.

Why do we believe? People can't accept futility of their lives. They think they are special and try to justify it with religion (eg. afterlife and "god's will").

Finally, people do not just start to believe in a religion. 95%+ percent, they are indoctrinated into that religion from a little kid that can't think for themselves. Then they stay in that religion mostly out of fear - leave and maybe get the wrath of god as preached by almost every religion so most don't want to take risk like that. This explains the lack of mobility from one religion to another.

Aside: Santa has a basis in historical events that are a lot closer than 2000 years yet look what happened to that. Santa now lives in the North Pole, sports a Coca Cola suit (yes, they made it red), and eats cookies and milk. Santa, from real facts to current myth seems to mimic the so called "religious historical facts" quite well.

And plenty of people critically evaluate their beliefs with a great amount of intellectual effort and still believe in God.

Well, human intellectual abilities are limited. Unfortunately, in our time, at the present state of civilization development, issues leading to understanding of religion still pose a real challenge to the mind. It's challenging enough that a good fraction of people fail to understand despite the effort.

Ask a five-years old whether he thinks Santa is real, and why. A few children of

Teacher: "Class, you may have noticed on the course syllabus that we are due to begin learning about evolution today. However, I think it's important to get a sense of humanity's place in the universe, and so we're going to take a short digression today into the significance of all our lives. Namely, [turns off lights and displays first slide] as morsels of food for Great Cthulhu." [Slide depicts the dread god devouring the earth.]

Nope, but I'd like it if they were taught that war (like religion) can be the cause of great human suffering and that for this reason it (like religion) must be analyzed with every ounce of critical thinking we can muster.

I know it's optimistic to hope for critical thinking in schools, but the alternative -- simply not discussing such topics -- amounts not to education, but vocational prep.

Over time, as man has evolved, he has reduced his need of gods from many (Sun God, God of Love, etc.) down to one - though, not necessarily the same one. The more fully evolved on the planet have made the final step and eliminated that one, too.

Okay. I have just one question though. Are they also going to come out with a guide "explaining the differences between science and religion, and asserting that acceptance of chemistry does not require abandoning belief in God".

I guess I have to reluctantly agree, ok it's "good" that they came out with a guide explaining there is no conflict between evolution and God, but it's really-really-sad and really-really-wrong that they had to do so. Evolution, chemistry, either one it's just plain silly.

One contains all the things explained by the phrase "god did it". The other contains all the things explained by "science".

A long time ago, everything was in the god basket, and nothing at all was in the science basket. The weather? God did it. Pregnancy? God did it. Disease? God did it. Where does stuff come from? God did it.

Then, as humanity learned more stuff, things got taken out of the god basket and put into the science basket. The weather. Pregnancy. Disease. Where stuff comes from, right back until a few billionths of a second before the big bang, getting closer all the time.

So what's left in the god basket? Good question -- but that's not where I'm going with this, because actually that's irrelevant.

The point is this: there has never -- never ever ever -- been a single thing that has been taken out of the science basket and put back in the god basket. Not one. Ever.

The traffic is all one way.

So I choose the basket that contains all human knowledge. I choose the basket that keeps getting new and fantastic stuff put in it. I choose the search for truth over the abrogation of understanding.

The god basket? You believers are welcome to that. It's basically empty, getting emptier all the time. But you're welcome to keep hanging on to it. The moment something is taken out of the science basket and put back into the god basket, you let me know, ok?

There aren't any baskets! God and science are unrelated. The creationists are wrong about denying science and you're wrong about denying God. It takes a narrow minded person to believe in the basket analogy, whether you're on the God side or the science side. God is not an explanation of the things we don't understand. The idea of God was around before we understood much, and things were chalked up to God when people didn't understand them, but the idea of God is not simply an explanation of nature. Quit perpetuating a useless viewpoint that only serves to cause controversy.

Simple: the basket metaphor is working on the assumption that once science can explain something, that something could not have been caused by God. If you want to say that wind is caused by the movement of air between different pressures, then what causes the different pressures? Temperature? What causes the temperature? The sun? What put the sun there? The big bang? What put the big bang there? Where does it all head? Science can keep pe

You're kind of missing the point of the basket analogy . . . in fact, you're actually/reinforcing/ the analogy. The point of it was that science/has/ peeled away the onion, continually and inexorablyy./Nothing/ has gone the other way. To destroy the analogy, you need to present some valid reason why science might/stop/ being able to peel away at the onion.Your second point, the question of why having a scientific explanation should preclude God doing it, is where the question of faith/belief/whatever co

If that is true then God has no contact with the physical world and he is irrelevant.

If you believe that somehow the thoughts in our head caused by our neurons and synapses reach God then he must be in contact with nature somehow. If God sends his magical wishes into our world to be written down in a book then it must also be so. If you claim that God affects our world then he must be part of nature or extend somehow into the physical world and science is the only possible successful method at discovering it. If you reject science you reject the only possibility of ever truly finding a god.

You can say that your idea of a god isn't related to science but the Christian God most certainly is and it's absurdly false.

Stop confusing your redefined vague new age bullshit god with the vengeful, jealous and petulant God of the desert.

Umm, he doesn't think he is right and everyone else is wrong. You make it sounds like he stands alone in his position. The world is not full of theists, and particularly Christians. What you are doing with that is a sort of false bandwagon argument. I mean, a bandwagon argument is poor anyways, but yours is also false because the "bandwagon" isn't even necessarily holding to your view.You say that the creator is not bound by the laws that science operates in. Maybe that is somehow possible, in a theore

take a look at the sectarian violence in the middle east now between shias and sunnis over minor interpretation of gods will (tho i suspect religion is just an excuse for racial hate that we are seeing, nowhere in the koran does it say killing innocents is ok)

nowadays religion brings nothing good it seems, what happened to compassion and love thy neighbour? instead we get peadophile priests and sexual abuse cases,

nowadays religion brings nothing good it seems, what happened to compassion and love thy neighbour? instead we get peadophile priests and sexual abuse cases,

If the only interaction with organised religion is through what the media reports, then yes it seems that it brings nothing good. However, for every pedophile priest, there will be 10,000 quietly busting their guts out for their parishioners.

what happened to helping the poor?

Again, what have you done for the poor in the last year? Most church members I know give a massive amount of cash and time for the poor. Who is giving the homeless meals and a place to stay? In my town it is the church. The government won't feed or home anyone who cannot pass random drug tests, which is basically all the homeless in the west. (At least here in Europe, if you are not on drugs and have half a brain then you can easily earn enough to eat at least).

The notion that 'God' is an explanation for all the things that science and reason has not yet adequately explained is a common one, but rather out-dated. It is a mistake that has been made by Christians and non-Christians alike.It has been given the moniker 'God of the gaps' and there is a description on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org].

Suffice it to say that most Christians who have given any significant thought to the matter do not believe in 'God of the gaps', so the argument that the traffic is all one way from 'religious ex

To put it another way, I don't believe in God in order to explain anything.

Well, that's a good idea since it doesn't explain anything. As the original poster pointed out, as more and more evidence is collected the need for gods, ghosts, and goblins declines and never increases. That is because it was an incorrect hypothesis to begin with.

The reality is that the "gods of the gaps" argument is the only argument for the existance of these fantasy beings and if you don't accept that then there is no other rea

Agnostics just think the debate is pointless. You won't find out if there IS a god, you won't find out that there ISN'T. Athiests vary in their vocality, but firmly believe that they are right about something they'll have no proof, either. If you aren't an athiest, an athiest will think you are wrong and will be confused/disappointed/frustrated/angry that you can't see the wisdom of their own position on the matter. Athiesm is just another religion. Agnostics generally don't get in your face or try to

I think the whole analogy is a bit misguided and has no historical basis and does not represent how science works.People have beliefs, that is an attribute that all people have. Maybe we evolved to have beliefs, a coping mechanism, but whatever everyone has beliefs. Some people's beliefs are formalised into religions, other people randomly ingest beliefs through the TV, society and Slashdot. Someone believes in God and another person believes there is no God, both have beliefs.

Every question asking for meanings ("why") rather than mechanisms ("how").

I'm an atheist, I believe the only meaning that exists is what we create ourself. But that is a philosophical position, not a scientific position. There are excellent philosophical arguments for why I'm right and the theists are wrong. But they are philosophical, not scientific. Those who believe science can disprove God is as delusioned as the ID people who believe science can prove God.

Those religions that has a well-educated clergy, such as the Catholic Church, have long ago decided to leave the Emperor (science) what is his, namely the mechanisms, and leave God (religion) what is his, namely the meanings. Only, Those churches that mainly consist of in-breed hillbillies, mostly some US Protestant groupings and some Arab Sunni-Islamic groups, still want religion to describe mechanisms, despite the overwhelming evidence that religion sucks at mechanism.

In science class, don't ask why it rains, ask how it rains. Mechanism, not meanings.

Every question asking for meanings ("why") rather than mechanisms ("how").

But why does there need to be a reason? Can things simply not be ?
I find it curious that we believe that there has to be an answer to 'why' questions.

Why do I exist ? Is that really a meaninful question ? It implies that I must be here for some purpose. One of the interesting things about language is that it is easy to ask questions without real meaning.

The problem some religious people have with Evolution is that it allows disbelief in god. Without Evolution, you need the watchmaker, and this is one of the best arguments for the existence of a creator. Logically, there is not much different between the spontaneous creation of simple and complex mechanisms (if its creation, there is a great difference when we're talking about evolving mechanisms), but in the human mind there is a great difference. Many might accept the Big Bang with no creator, only few would accept spontaneous creation of earth as it is now.
So, although Evolution "does not require abandoning belief in God" it allows it, and this is bad enough for those who choose religious dogma over scientific discoveries.

I'm pretty tolerant against people with any kind of religion, mostly because it is the only way to get along. But trying to reconcile science and religion? They are both trying to describe how the world works, from two opposite sides. All the important things that religious persons believe in are completely outside the laws of nature. Saying that they can go together because one is about belief and the other about reason? These concepts are not exclusive if you try and describe the same thing.

Now I might be flagged as some kind of extremist. If that's true, it's because I don't want to "belief" as some people want me to. I try and describe things in a logical matter. Fortunately you can be a extremist atheist without having to harm people. Especially if you see from history that polarization is sure not to work.

But if you teach kids from an early enough age to view the world critically and scientifically and to think for themselves, one should lead to the other.

Don't be such a fool. You're as bad as the creationists when you posit that science and God are at opposition with each other. They're simply unrelated. The idea that science can be used to explain what God has done is not new. It's been around for years. It simply gets ignored by all the people that want a battle and a fight. There have been many gre

Einstien did not believe in god, despite using the word as a surrogate for "nature". As to the others, yes, they were wrong. I notice that all the ones you mention believed in one of the the European versions of the Judeo/Christian/Pauline god(s); this was nothing more than social context.

If they had each been Indian they would have belived in Rama, Shiva etc. but their work would have been the same, or at least of the same quality. That's because science and rational thought are striving towards a truth,

If the National Academy of Sciences feels the urge to make such a statement, then this is another shocking sign of how far religious thinking has permeated the US of A.

I keep looking forward to the time when people proclaiming to get their commands from god have to pay the same price as people proclaiming that elvis is still alive
looking like a happy man/ in the snow with Rosebud/ and King of the mountain.

It's about time teachers in the US stopped pandering to these idiotic demands for the discussion of religious dogma in science classes. It doesn't matter if the theory of evolution is consistent with any belief systems. If it's not science, then it doesn't belong in a science lesson. Period.

Science is based on the idea that all phenomena are explainable and endeavours to find explanations through observation, experimentation and the progressive incremental refinement of theories. Religion is based on the idea that some things are beyond explanation, and must be accepted as Mysteries by believers. These two premises are about as irreconcilable as you can get. Either Science will progress to a point where all religious Mysteries can be explained in scientific terms, or a proof will be established that shows why certain things are beyond explanation. (Cf. how you cannot determine five variables given a system of four simultaneous equations.)

Evolution provides such a good explanation for biodiversity that it becomes unnecessary to invoke God, except for the awkward questions of the origin of the universe and the origin of life. You can bodge in a kind of "wind it up and let it go", deist God, but this still ends up leaving unanswered questions: If a God could come spontaneously into existence from nowhere, why couldn't a ready-made, non-God-requiring universe come spontaneously into existence from nowhere? And if a highly complex living entity such as God could could come spontaneously into existence from nowhere, why couldn't a few single-cell organisms come spontaneously into existence from a suitable already-existing environment rich in carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur and trace elements, with pure energy available in the form of radioactivity or electrical storms? (Evolutionary theory suggests that you only need single-cell organisms to begin with. All the rest will then take care of itself.)

And trying to teach biology without mentioning evolution is a bit like trying to teach electronics without mentioning Ohm's Law. (And Ohm's Law cannot be proven or disproven experimentally, because every voltmeter and ammeter fundamentally depends on Ohm's Law being true for its operation.)

Science is based on the idea that all phenomena are explainable and endeavours to find explanations through observation, experimentation and the progressive incremental refinement of theories. Religion is based on the idea that some things are beyond explanation, and must be accepted as Mysteries by believers.

Even if you accept, for the sake of argument, that incorrect definition of religion, there's still no problem. You just have to remember that not all "things" are "phenomena". If it's a phenomenon,

I was reamed out last evolution post here on Slashdot because I thought speciation needed to happen for evolution to work. Now that I know that natural selection is even considered as one form of evolution, I'm down with the idea of evolution. I'm not even arguing against speciation. Evolution has a large number of concepts though and it infers a Big Bang and a Spark of Life for it to work. While you won't get me biting on those two tickets, I know evolution is solid science. I think a lot of Creationists would bite on evolution if the spark of life wasn't part of the equation. I mean Creationism says how it all started, and evolution says how everything is changing since it began. Just looking at it that way it makes sense. While I can't tell you how old the world is, I can rest assuredly say that evolution works in this post fall of man world.

On first sight, it won't harm to, while accepting Evolution, believe in God, the easter bunny or anything else nobody has ever seen and nobody has ever come up with any indication for existince.

However, this would really be totally schizophrenic: it would require somebody to base his acceptance about what is on something that is completely without any logical cause (God) and something that has been derived from many pieces of unrelated evidence (Science). I don't see how this can go together in any reasonable way. How should one decide when to believe and when to require evidence? Somebody who believes in God could just as well believe in Creationism or some other silly fairy tale.

The argument of some religious people, some of them calling themselves scientists is that science cannot answer all questions and religion comes in then: why was there the big bang etc.Of course science cannot and will never be able to answer all question. But what good is it to believe in some fairy tale answer for those unanswerable questions instead of just accepting that we simply dont know? Isn't it evident that "answering" the question about why there was a big bang with "God did it" makes everything just more complicated instead of easier? Why is there "God" then? We do not gain anything by this "answer" but we lose a lot.

I think it is evident that there simply is no place for religion to answer the wonders of what is anymore. None of the explanations for how stuff works thousands of religions came up with ever turned out to be true or remotely sensible.

That leaves religion as some kind of ethical instance: maybe it cannot explain nature and reality, but it tells us how to behave ethically, no?I think, this is actually not true either, on the contrary: ethical behavior comes from the human ability of compassion. It is biologically built into us. No need for God here either. It is no coincidence that practically all mahir rules of ethics, save some details about sexual behavior, are identical between religions: you dont kill, you dont cause pain, you dont steal etc.The role of religions here is to make it unnecessary to *think* about ethics. After all God told us the does and donts. And that is the problem: when it is not necessary to think about ethics any more, compassion can be switched off. Yes, it is not right to kill, but its ok to kill that criminal. Yes it is not ok to cause pain, but it is ok with that slave or that member of another religion.

Religion is opium, because its sole purpose is to make thinking unnecessary and make people feel comfy in their self-rightous ignorance.

Which God are they promoting as being compatible with their science curriculum? Because I'm pretty sure that they can't be claiming all religions are compatible with it - there are sure to be some which just aren't.

Odds are that they're only promoting one (or a handful of) major religions. Aren't there laws against that sort of thing?

Why do I have to believe or disbelieve in God? Some religious views I find repugnant, in the sense that I would not consider such a God as deserving of worship, but that is not disbelief. I don't have any personal emotional need for "meaning," nor do I have any emotional need for everything in the universe to be explained to me right now. I am comfortable with mystery, and am more interested in the process of discovery and puzzling out the answers than in what the final answers might be. If everything were explained to me tomorrow, it would spoil all the fun, like somebody telling me the end of a movie when I walk in the door. What would be left for me do?

God as a general concept is just not interesting. It is too vague too be testable, so it falls into the category of ideas like solipsism or the notion that the entire universe and all of our memories were created 10 seconds ago. It certainly could be right, but so what? It is an intellectual blind alley that does not lead anywhere interesting. It is boring. You take it as far as it goes (not very far) and then you look for something more interesting to think about.

If somebody wants to propose a testable God hypothesis, fine. I'll give it the thought that it merits. God created all of the species at one time a few thousand years ago? OK, that one's been tested and it's wrong. Next?

I don't think one can be both religious and scientific. The reason is that science tells you to believe that which the evidence shows to be true, and religions give the answers up front and then tell you not to even do the experiments.

'Do not test the Lord your God' is what we're told when we seek to investigate the existence of gods.
'Faith is the belief in things not seen' is what the religious man tells us as he waves his hand in the manner of a jedi after experiments and analysis fail to show the Almighty.

Religions seek an exception to the scientific method, specifically the parts where you do any science. Experimentation is forbidden, doubt is sin, and failure to believe can result in eternal damnation.

Religion and science are not simply two ways of looking to the universe for answers to our questions. They are absolute opposites of each other. If I were a boy asking his parents a question about something I observed, such as the growth of a plant from a seed, a scientific parent would have to encourage me to experiment on seeds, dissect them, and find out when a seed becomes a tree. A religious parent would simply hand me a book and tell me that if my answer wasn't in there, it probably wasn't important, and may be heretical.

Heresy. A concept foreign to science, but present in all the world's major religions. Freedom to think as you choose, to ask questions without being burned alive at the stake, hung, tortured, stretched or beheaded is a part of science and not a part of religion.

The choice between science and religion is the same one as the choice between trial by peers or simple lynching.

Or as the old Pope hold, science provides a description of how God created the world, while religion provides a description of why God created the world. - but it's not true either.

It's easy to imagine that the proto-humans came up with ideas of various super-powers not to explain how or why something is happening, but simply to give a name to a concept. How do you describe the world in the most simple way in a proto-language? You just name everything.

Imagine you are a proto-human (difficult, but probably possible.) You see that the wind blows dust in the air. Somehow over thousands of years this concept receives a name, and this name is a name just like a human name 'Wind' (obviously not in English, but we have to understand each other here.) Does this mean that Wind is a god? Not necessarily, but it looks like Wind is a living creature with powers that no human possesses. The power to move many objects in the air for whatever reason. Is this a useful description of why the wind blows or how it blows? Not really, but it is a description that the Wind blows.

Everything gets a name, most things have powers that humans do not. Organized religions come much later, they combine many powers into single names. Zeus has many powers, but not all. Super organized religions come later yet, they try to reduce the powers to fewer names yet.

You can see the Occam's razor at work even in organization of religions. Why use many gods to explain things, when fewer gods with more powers is just as sufficient, and very much more efficient. You only need to talk to 3, 2 or even 1 god for all your needs, you don't need to talk to the Wind god about wind and to the Sun god about the Sun. If it wasn't for the human ability to reduce ideas into a smaller set we could not have come up with any science.

The Super organized religions started doing what the proto-religions were not - they were used to control the population for economic reasons rather than to simply name the unknown. They came up with various stories about how the gods created things and even with some 'why' questions to give meaning to various terrible events that humans have experienced in their lives.

But really there is no explanation in religion as to 'why' gods do anything, only reasoning as to 'why' bad things happen.

You see logic and faith as orthogonal concepts that supplement each other, rather than as competing concepts.

Or as the old Pope hold, science provides a description of how God created the world, while religion provides a description of why God created the world.

So we take something very complex like the Earth or the universe, and we explain its origins by something even *MORE* complex.

Does that make any sense?

I see logic and faith as two totally opposite concepts. One relies on rational thinking while the other relies on two thousand year old myths. One of the memorable parts of Neil deGrasse Tyson's [wikipedia.org] speech on Beyond Belief 2006 [thesciencenetwork.org] was the fact that 15% of scientists believe in God, and he thought that this 15% was the biggest worry of science. Because he, and many other scientist can't reconcile the belief in God with science because explaining something complex and unlikely by something even more complex and even more unlikely doesn't make any sense.

Or as the old Pope hold, science provides a description of how God created the world, while religion provides a description of why God created the world.

And if that religion is Christianity, the resulting explanation is even stranger than the bizarre factual claims the religion makes.

Why didn't God just create us all as souls in Heaven? Everyone sings happily ever after, end of story.

But no, he has to create us with bodies in a material world and leave us unattended so we can fall prey to temptations we don't understand and get condemned to Hell for it, so he can show how much he loves all of us by saving a tiny, tiny fraction of us from eternal torture.

The factual errors in the bible can be swept under the rug if you're so motivated, but the theology is stupid beyond belief.

Yes it does, in the "God waved a magic wand and it appeared" sort of way. Science is an attempt to explain the universe without resorting to wand-waving. Science by definition MUST rely on a logical, open debate about verifiable and repeatable evidence. At it's essence, science is simply an effort to be as convincing as possible. Religious arguments ultimtely rely on citing the authority of various religious texts or traditions and exclude new or different evidence.

Overall I think science education has done a poor job of differentiating between science and faith. This has been exacerbated by the exclusion of any discussion of religion in public education, as you need to talk about religion and faith to understand the difference.

Oh, please stop. God does not exist. Religion is bullshit all the way through. Religion contains nothing worth of respect whatsoever. What, the "do unto toers as you would have them do to you" part? As if our evolved group-survival trait of altruism was not enough to take care of that.

I myself am perfect willing to talk about it. The problem with religion and politics in public discourse is everyone gets into a shitflinging troll fest over it. Its taking a (seemingly but no really) logical approach to the groups of religions all over the world, its so pervasive that maybe someone is right and there is some schitzophrenic psycopathic holy loving magical man up in the sky that runs the servers we exist in, so 'just in case' we gotta pay respects to him in the event he decides to cut the power to our corner of the cluster and we have no failover.

The reason we keep electing Presidents that seem to have such a connection to religion is 1.) nobody does their homework and figures out that all these assholes pay lip service to everything and only believe in themselves and 2.) nobody fucking votes. If enough people got off their ass and voted, this country could be a lot different.

We need to come up with some way to just 'appoint' a random person who meets a minimum set of qualifications for president. To many ways to game such a system means it will never be feasible until we have computer overlords with no soul, no 'bugs', and definied values (opinions) on politics and religions. In that case, the concept of a 'President' is moot anyway. Plus we all know (or should) where that leads... the ultimate truth from AI even with Asimovs laws, humans are too much of a danger to themselves to exist.

The reason we keep electing Presidents that seem to have such a connection to religion is

3.) "We" didn't elect them, voters with connections to religion did. Certain presidential candidates have tailored their campaigns to favour these voters because there are so many of them. Not only presidential candidates, but all kinds of political candidates frequently have some kind of connection to religeous interests.
I think that government has got a bit religeously "top-heavy" lately, with so many "fundie" candidates in positions of power that they think they have a mandate.
Hopefully, they'll be pr

Uh, most of Asia? Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism are philosophies, not religions, as they do not really speak of Gods, or the afterlife. So I'd have to respectfully disagree that 'most' societies throughout human history have been religious. For that matter, most human societies throughout human history have been breeding grounds for disease, but we don't think of disease as something valuable. You'll have to come up with a better argument than that.

Humans are, uniquely among all creatures, always have been and always will be religious creatures. Explain why that is scientifically, if you will.

Oooh, a challenge! Shiny, shiney new toy. Thanks Santa!

Now let's break it, fast.

Our abilities to plan into the future, remember the past, recognize patterns, abstract thought, and infer by analogy are survival traits. Right?

Now, parallel research on split-brain patients and in AI have arrived to a similar model of the mind. It is a group of agents, each specializing in one task. What split-brain research has demonstrated is that the inference module is not accurate : it infer an explanation for anything, as long as it can apply a pattern that's been memorized before.For example, paranoia seems to work by forcing the inference module to find scary explanations to ordinary events. Agents are interacting, but independent. A paranoid person may know full well that there isn't, say, a sniper hiding just there in the bushes, but will have to go see to be sure, even if that's several times.

Religion is an explanation for things that science has figured out by now. It appeared as primitive explanations to... everything, especially the origin of the world and of the laws that govern it.But someone finally decided that they'd seen enough the pattern of "the world around me seems to work in a consistent ways" and inferred "maybe I can figure out all the rules". Now that is an other way to get the answers, and it's better, because it yields perfect results when everything is right (ie, you test an hypothese that happens to be correct). The scientific method is a better tool than religion, so it will supplant it some day.

What's frustrating is knowing there is a reason why people still believe in God : the ssurvival trait to find new ideas dangerous, weird, strange. It is a group-survival trait : if we didn't have it, the genuinely dangerous new ideas would kill us all off damn fast.

Now you know the mechanisms by which both religion and science appeared, and because of which there is a fight between them memes. Happy?

Nice post; just one more thing. Richard Dawkins has pointed out that human children will absolutely believe anything told to them by an adult with responsibility (such as a parent, or group elder) without question. This is sensible, as it includes advice such as: "Don't kick wolves - just edge away slowly", and "don't eat the bright red berries that grow on small bushes". This helps survival, as life-or-death facts can be passed on quickly and in bulk. It also happens to helps propogate religion. Almost everyone in the world who is religous is so because their parents were. And they almost always share the same religion as their parents.

People are religous not because they have thought about it, concluded that it is correct, and chosen a sect to suit themselves. They are religous because they don't go around kicking wolves, eating the bright red berries, or running over the freeway without looking because it's a handy shortcut. They have been told that this is how the world works from an early age, and they simply accepted it as fact, as a by-product of a useful behaviour which has been evolved.

If we started from a clean slate, and had all children raised in a secular society, taught equally about all religions *and* science, then which do you think the children would choose? Even if they chose to be religous (and if taught properly about science and reason, I think that most would be atheist), the odds are that they wouldn't make the same choice as their parents (there are just so many sects to choose from).

It might come as a big surprise for you, but the Pope was Catholic, and it has always been the position of the Catholic Church, like it has been for all educated Christians, that the Bible requires interpretation.

This is quite unlike the certain inbreed American hillbillies, who has never read a book in their life, who therefore believe the King James Bible is God's words which can somehow be read directly without interpretation.

I'd recommend reading Christopher Hitchens' new book "God is not Great" for more detail, but here goes:

Credulity (or gullability, if you'd like) was probably evolutionarily beneficial because belief, in itself, can have positive health implications (ie the placebo effect). Individuals who "believe" tend to recover from disease more than people who don't. What you believe in doesn't seem to matter.

This was fine and good during most of our civilization's childhood, because frankly we didn't know anything about anything. But in the modern age, when science has far more beautiful, predicive and elegant explainations, we need to feed that desire to "believe" with analysis of facts. It is harder, for sure, but more rewarding. Religion knows it is being phased out slowly, and therefore fights science and free thought every step of the way.

Logic is something mostly objective, and provable in a mathematical sense.
Faith is subjective, mystical, and can have the appearance of utter hogwash to someone not participating therein.
The casual observer of one of my more meaningful experiences would have said: "Dude: you were parking the car".
Yet, at that time, in that context, I got a very deep message out of it.
The trick to peaceful existence is to keep a weather eye on the line of demarcation between faith an logic, and be respectful, if not accepting, of both sides.
And don't try to use elements of one to assail the other. Such is a quick trip to unhappy land.

No, arrogance is what keeps the people ignorant, uncritical, and divided. Faith in and of itself can keep an individual sane. I guess its along the lines of an individual being smart, but that same individual in a large group can be very dumb. Its got nothing to do with faith in and of itself, its the outside influences and self inspired arrogance that brings those things about.Proclaiming that its a tool shows you either haven't really considered what faith is, have had negative experiences with someon

Faith can be tempered by logic, and logical explanations can often be translated back into faith frameworks without loss.

It's like what happened at the turn of the 20th century where society began to discover psychopharmacology. There was an initial crisis that it would reduce the human experience to nothing more than a set of chemical interactions, which brought religion entirely into question. Similarly, again, was the discovery that "religious experiences" can be reliably induced by stimulating certain areas of the brain. Now, I don't see why the theory that consciousness and the soul are nothing more than functions of chemical reactions invalidates them from having a higher meaning, at least in a subjective sense; it simply requires a slight adjustment in thinking.

It's one thing to decide to adhere strictly to a faith-based approach or a science-based approach, but in my opinion, only a narrow mind sees the impossibility in rationalizing the two. I'm a philosophical Taoist mathematician with a good interest in science and I've never had any problems. My dad is a fairly devout protestant from a moderately conservative denomination (by Canadian standards), and holds a PhD in physics; he also doesn't find that there needs to be any clash between his scientific knowledge and his religious beliefs.

Human beings are rarely aware of much of what drives them to think or act or feel what they do. Science attempts to explain it all, but its answers aren't very reassuring and when it comes to it, religion is much better at satisfying people's feelings of emptiness and lack of direction.

So it's no surprise that, given the inadequacies of the current state of science, people are still believing in the supernatural.

Also, it's not a question of logic but probability. I mean, even science has basic assumptions

>Essentially, I think we needn't care too much about whether people choose to see everything>as fitting into 'God's Plan' or being just 'Stuff that happens' or whatever, as long as>everybody is committed to uncovering the truth, whatever it turns out to be.

I think the problem is that some people aren't committed to finding out the truth, whatever it turns out to be. There are some religious organizations, such as those promoting creationism that are using intellectually dishonest arguments and some outright lies to spread a world view that has been thoroughly disproven for hundreds of years.

I think it is true that science and religion can easily coexist in general. However, science cannot coexist with people who are not committed to discovering the truth. A person cannot be a scientist or understand science without a commitment to the truth.

This creates great stress on our society, because on the one hand people need science both to survive and to provide a reasonable explanation of the objective truths of the world. On the other and people also need help understanding the things that science doesn't have very good explanations of, like morality, or their subjective experience of the world.

Modern science and philosophy don't give clear guidelines on what sort of things a person should do, and they don't provide any sort of explanation on what our experiences of the world are. For instance, modern science provides an explanation of how light works, and how the brain works (to some degree), but there is no explanation of our experience of the color red, since red is not quantitatively defined. Note by the color red, I am not referring to a particular frequency of light, but our experience *of* that frequency of light. These are important aspects of how we partake in the world that have yet to be tackled.

Since psychologically people have a strong desire for explanations and reasons for both the things that we have explanations to, and the things we have yet to find explanations to, there is a strong need for belief in addition to knowledge. Religion typically fulfills this role in society with supernatural explanations of aspects of reality that our knowledge of the natural world falls short of. Unfortunately, people offering supernatural explanations for the things that we don't understand will sometimes try to offer supernatural explanations for the things we *do* already understand and those two explanations will stand at odds with one another.

In my mind is is clearly the responsibility of any religious organization to mend their religious doctrine so that it does not conflict with facts that are known about the world. Indeed, most major modern sects do so to some degree. The catholic church for instance has changed many of its stances on various issues to correspond with scientific understanding. Ideas like the big band theory and evolution are accepted and taught at catholic institutions, and of course there is no mention of a geocentric model of the universe anymore. Many protestant denominations have made similar changes.

Unfortunately, some religious groups feel that their beliefs about supernatural matters are on par or superior to knowledge about the physical world. They ask, why should we have to change our beliefs just because we know otherwise? Instead, these groups ask their members to believe one thing and know another. This is not a healthy attitude, and causes psychological and social strife I feel pretty strongly that such religious organizations are doing their members a disservice and should be called to task for the harm they are doing.

Faith has logic, based on axioms such as the existence of God and so forth.

I disagree. There have been incredible minds in history that NEEDED to apply logic to the basis of their existence, so they BROUGHT logic to Religion. But religion was free of logic long before and after their collective contributions.

Religion is, quite frankly the father telling his son a bed-time story.. The story is NOT intended to be logical, but to convey significance. It is meant to be remembered, it is meant to impart guidelines, it is meant to bring race-pride (to foster loyalty, etc). I'm generalizing all religions.

In the bed-time saga, the target audience is the inquisitive youth - religion is always the 'master speaking to his flock', or the elder speaking to the community, or the parents/grand-parents teaching their children. In this, there is an implicit respect (otherwise there wouldn't have been a conversation), such that we 'trust' our elders and that what they have to say was important for their survival, and thus is likely important in our own.

Further, elders don't just spout the history of the bible.. They impart useful info - dating advice, how to cook, how to hunt. My great great grand-daddy built this farm with this bare two hands.. And don't worry about lying to your wife just then.. God will forgive you.. See Jesus sacrificed himself knowing that each of us is flawed, but he loved us so much.. And so on.

It's all part of a cultural acceptance for each successive generation. It's not:1) God created the world2) God gets angry3) God punishes bad people4) The first person was bad5) God punished all his children6) God gets over his anger and makes promises to avoid punishing us in the future7) Jesus's sacrifice represented a new covanant where God will not punish those that honor the sacrifice8) You should do whatever the f*#k I say because I've accepted Jesus, so I'm going to heaven, and you might not.

That's a logical progression (with a LOT of assumptions of course). But who in church ever talks like this? People would tune out the pastor. Religion, is a series of unrelated assertions - where you trust the lecturer. Dawkins book talks about this phenomena. Basically that it is biologically important for children to absorb their parent's instructions without question (at least until a certain age). It is also biologically important for us to work as a team (group-think). This combination leads to a meta-life-form. Legends, rituals, etc. Religion is one of the ultimate forms of meta-life-forms that Hawking describes (quite offensively) as a parasite, living entirely off it's hosts; surviving from generation to generation.. Slightly evolving to fit the environmental changes, or dieing, in the face of natural selection.

What I find significant about this meta-life-form perspective is that we can never be free of such parasites entirely.. Look at Christmas - it is now expected of us to act crazy on Black-Friday through past new years in the US. It's a culturalism that has grown out of a complex series of unrelated historical events and will likely continue to evolve for another thousand years into something as yet unrecognizable. The ramifications have extended to most countries around the world, because need to be part of the economic event. We are in a generation that can not ignore the phenomena (if you are a business owner at least). Much like the founding generations of other religions. If the whole community necessitated a cultural series of actions (for weddings, funerals, child-bearing, what-have-you), you couldn't afford to isolate yourself... Judeo-Islamo-Christianity is getting the hard stuff now because it's actually possible to live in non-religious communities. It's possible to not baptize your children now or what-ever, and not be effectively stoned to death or burned at the stake. How many thousands of years did that take? 5?

Some things can not be proven at the moment, because we lack the necessary resources or because the theory has not yet progressed to the point of making a testable prediction.Some things are inherently unprovable. That is a large distinction.

I might have some theory that makes a prediction of the behavior of matter at extremely high temperatures. Maybe I can't test it right now because there is no way (yet) to generate that temperature, but it is still testable in principal.

The whole point of God is that it is rational to be irrational. The magic junction box is known as faith. It's a black rectangle with dimensions 1x4x9 that can't be scratched by a laser or any other known tool. If sufficiently perplexed, it will heat up enough to fry your latkes. Does not work as a contraceptive, and might result in bleeding.

As for belief in faith, any day now I'm expecting to see it show up on an advanced fMRI scan, right beside Husband Hill.

If you believe in science AND god then your a bloody hypocrite because the scientific method can never be used on god.

No! That's what some creationists say, but it is a fallacy. It is well known that science makes the materialistic assumption that everything has a natural cause, and this obviously excludes supernatural things such as God. However, that doesn't mean that scientists must believe in ontological materialism in order to be scientists. They just need to understand it. It is perfectly possible for someone to "think like a scientist" and also have strong religious faith, and there is a long list of scientists who have done so, including the "father of physics" Isaac Newton.

It is perfectly possible for someone to "think like a scientist" and also have strong religious faith, and there is a long list of scientists who have done so, including the "father of physics" Isaac Newton.

He was also high on mercury vapors from believing in alchemy.Just because you're good at math doesn't mean everything you believe is true.

If you believe in science AND god then your a bloody hypocrite because the scientific method can never be used on god.

I'm not seeing the logic here.

A hypocrite is someone who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings.

Let's say for the sake of argument (I don't actually agree with this) that there is no aspect of God and religion (specifically in this case Christianity) to which the scientific method can be applied.

If I stated that the scientific method provides the only valid grounds f

If you believe in science AND god then your a bloody hypocrite because the scientific method can never be used on god.

If you believe in science AND human rights then you're a hypocrite because scientific method can never be used on human rights. So you have a false dichotomy going on right there.

The other one is an ideology. It doesn't require scientific proof and it's a personal attribute. Science by definition is about modeling things with scientific method. So what you're saying is that if you believe in

It's not evidence, it's anecdote. If we'd apply the same standard of proof to god that we would apply to a shoplifting then religion would be out of business pretty quickly. The funny thing is that religion should be held to a *HIGHER* standard because of all the outrageous claims they make and the wisdom they claim to profess.

For example, as we know it there are some parameters in the standard model of physics that have to be set just right in order for the universe as it is currently set to exist. That is for the strength of the gravitational force, magnetic force, atomic etc.

Yeah and if those constants where different, the universe would be completely different and we probably wouldn't be there to describe it as a miracle... That argument is circular because there is absolutely no reason for us to assume the current laws t

For example, as we know it there are some parameters in the standard model of physics that have to be set just right in order for the universe as it is currently set to exist. That is for the strength of the gravitional force, magnetic force, atomic etc.

Who's to say there wouldn't be something else if it were differen't? Were there even of these mystical 'force dials' in the first place?

I believe the it is a more difficult miracle for God to set this stuff up into motion 15 billion years ago so that today y

Don't kid yourself, religion and science use entirely different standards to decide what is true. Science uses logic and evidence, religion uses faith and dogma. Dogma is defined as "a religious doctrine that is proclaimed as true without proof."

Science may not have an answer for everything, science has made mistakes, not every accepted theory can be 100% proven. But religion does not even try to prove anything, religion requires you to accept what is proclaimed without any attempt of evidence, or logic, what-so-ever. With religion, it's true just because somebody said so - no other reason.

Don't let yourself be fooled by an argument of ignorance. Don't think "if science doesn't have every answer that proves religion to be true." Because that is just illogical.

What is known about science is backed by hard evidence - religion has no such standard.

People who take Genesis 1 literally are partially the victims of the translation. The original Hebrew is the ancient equivalent of a poem, but the translators normally present in the manner of modern prose rather than in the manner of a modern poem, which is a shame.Understanding Genesis 1 as a poem leads to some rather wonderful finds. For example, the way I like to understand Genesis 1 is as follows: